ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Syrian authorities on Thursday foiled an attempt to smuggle “a large shipment of advanced weapons” - including drones and long-range missiles - near the country's border with Iraq, the Syrian interior ministry said, adding that preliminary reports suggest the cache was bound for the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
“Specialized units thwarted an attempt to smuggle a massive shipment of advanced weapons along the Syrian-Iraqi border,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the weapons were found in a vehicle “parked within the [interconnected] borderlands in a suspicious manner.”
A search of the vehicle turned up a cache that included “long-range missiles, anti-armor guided missiles, and drones,” the statement detailed, adding that preliminary investigations indicate the shipment was set to be transferred to Lebanon via Syria, ultimately bound for Hezbollah.
The ministry added that investigations are ongoing to “determine the circumstances surrounding the case, identify those involved, and track down the networks” associated with the operation.
For decades, until the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Iran relied on a logistical pipeline running through Syria to reach Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Syria under Assad integrating its state infrastructure, military divisions, and border control to facilitate, protect, and distribute Iranian-supplied arms.
The land route was especially important, serving as the backbone of the heavy-weapons transit pipeline with the primary entry point being western Iraq's al-Qa'em border crossing - known as Albu Kamal on the Syrian side - where Iraqi armed groups aligned with the Tehran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ have historically held sway.
Weapons were funneled from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold, via various official and unofficial crossings. These routes were disrupted after Assad's fall.
Prior to Thursday’s bust, Syrian security forces in June thwarted a rocket smuggling attempt in the border village of al-Ameriyah near Talkalakh.
Prior to Thursday's bust, Syrian security forces in June thwarted a rocket smuggling attempt in the border village of al-Ameriyah, near Talkalakh, in Syria’s western Homs province.
Syrian border guards earlier this year also seized a massive cache of rifles, rocket launchers, and anti-armor shells. At the time, interior ministry Spokesperson Noureddine al-Baba then said Damascus would not hold back in "dismantling Hezbollah-linked logistics networks entirely."
In late 2025, Syrian authorities raided a warehouse in the al-Qusayr region in Homs, seizing 200 Grad rockets, in what the interior ministry described at the time as "a direct, structural dismantling of the proxy networks left behind by the former regime."
While Thursday's cache is notably the largest seizure since Assad's fall, it will likely not be the last under the interim Syrian authorities.
The Damascus interior ministry reiterated in its Thursday statement that it "will not allow Syrian territory to be used as a transit point or a launch pad for weapons smuggling or for any activities that threaten the security" of Syria and its neighbors.
